Last week, the USDA announced a sweep plan to speed up the genocide line with pork and poultry plants.
Poultry plant workers don't actually kill chickens – the task is automated with what is called the visceral belt, a conveyor belt that kills chickens and removes organs. The chicken corpses then move to another part of the plant, where workers in cramped and cold state cut them out and handle dozens of birds per minute to be packed into supermarkets and restaurants. Pork plants can currently operate with up to 1,106 pigs per hour.
For decades, the meat industry has hoped that USDA will recognize varying degrees under both Republican and Democrat administrations. Now, the Trump administration plans to give the industry the biggest victory over this issue. Worker safety advocates say it will make one of America's most dangerous jobs even worse.
In the short term, the USDA will allow dozens of chicken and pork processing plants that already have temporary exemptions to operate the genocide line faster. But the long-term plan for agents is much more important: establish rules to allow all A pig and chicken slaughterhouse to speed up the slaughter line.
This comes at the same time that the Trump administration promises a massive deportation of undocumented immigrants who make up a significant portion of the slaughterhouse workforce.
The meat industry celebrated the move. The National Pork Growers “expanded” their “deep thanks” to the USDA for its plan, and the National Chicken Council and the Meat Institute expressed similar sentiments.
Meanwhile, workers' safety advocates are on guard.
“Increasing the speed of the line will hurt workers — that's not probably, that's clear,” the president of the retail, wholesale and department store labor union, which represents more than 15,000 poultry workers, wrote in a statement.
Speed of discussion about slaughter lines
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, slaughterhouse workers are making quick and repetitive moves with sharp knives during long shifts – suffering from getting injured at a much higher rate than all of the private industry.
But Debbie Berkowitz, the chief of staff and senior policy advisor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under President Obama, said reality is far worse than those numbers suggest. Many government agencies, including the USDA, have found BLS estimates inadequate, and Berkowitz noted that injuries rates have been self-reported by meat companies that have not been tallied by government inspectors.
It is unclear how quickly the Trump administration will allow meat companies to run slaughter lines. The agency began work on draft rules but did not provide details. During President Trump's first term, the USDA was able to grant or renew exemptions to more than 50 chicken slaughter plants, increasing line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175. They also tried to completely eliminate the line speed limits for pork facilities.
In response, the USDA commissioned a study that compared chicken plants that operated the genocide line with 140 birds per minute with up to 175 birds per minute, operated with 1,106 pigs per hour with standard 1,106 pigs, then speeded up.
They found that 81% of poultry plant workers and 46% of pork plants were at a higher risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis.
That risk did not arise directly from the speed of the automatic built-in line. In this study, there was no correlation between the two. However, they found that there was a correlation between the risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders and the workload of each employee, or the “peacerate,” that is, the number of animals or meat cut per minute. If individual employee workloads exceed a constant pace, they are more likely to get injured if researchers discover that they are.
“From this study there is no doubt that the speed at which workers have to deal with chickens and pigs is directly linked to the risk of musculoskeletal disorders,” Berkowitz said.
In this study, some slaughter plants operating at faster slaughter line speeds added enough staff or automation to compensate for higher workloads, but most did not – an increased risk of injury.
Trump's USDA and meat industry groups conveniently ignore important findings about employee workloads. The press release on the benefits of speeding up the genocide line is to say nothing about increasing personnel to prevent injuries. The temporary exemption that allows genocides to speed up the slaughter line did not require an increase in staffing, and the USDA did not respond to questions about whether the proposed rules would require it.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union already calls for additional staffing in addition to “improving workplace injury reporting, increased access to early and appropriate healthcare, and changes in work that minimize ergonomic stressors.”
Ultimately, according to Berkowitz, the meat industry “runs the USDA. It's a highly bred agent.” And she celebrated a study in the USDA and the meat industry that found that 81% of poultry workers and 46% of pork workers experienced the risk of such injuries. “Do you say that's acceptable?”
